Chinese Takeout and Delivery

I'm currently re-reading David Hackworth's book About Face (I'm at the part where he is recalling his reaction to the lack of Lessons Learned by the US Army regarding counter-insurgency and anti-guerrilla operational requirements in Vietnam circa early-1966 while assigned as escort officer to S. L. A. Marshall). I'm wondering if we in the US aren't going through something similar right now as regards PRC offensive actions against us (not to mention the rest of the world).

It seems not unreasonable to assume that the PLA (along with its subordinate Naval and Air Force components - everyone in the People's Republic of China military is a soldier, whether assigned to an army, navy or air force position) is willing to regard the current coronavirus pandemic as a useful model for determining the various responses to be expected to future, deliberate offensive actions against the US and other countries. It is also well known, if not often commented upon in the US media, that the PRC is active throughout the North and Central American region, whether via the PLA, PLAN, PLAAF, or other PRC agencies.

It occurs to me that now, during the current largely shut down status of so much of US national activity (industrial, commercial, governmental), that an effort by the PLA to develop a guerrilla organizational structure from within the ranks of the existing Mexican smuggling gangs shouldn't be all that out of the question.

The PLA has disrupted Nicaraguan government and societal stability to further the PRC's construction of a canal through that country to rival the Panama Canal, the resulting violence having effect on human migration patterns out of Nicaragua (from there into Guatemala, from there into Mexico, from there …). The PRC is well known to have established relationships with Mexican drug cartels to supply them with drug or drug precursor materials. Mexican "drug cartels" are in actual fact drug and anything else smugglers, so how outlandish an idea is it to suppose the PLA isn't working right now to supply Mexican smuggling gangs with the means to also smuggle a ready-made-to-order guerilla insurgency into the US as well?

The PRC is demonstrably willing to actively work to permit the wide-spread dispersal of this latest coronavirus around the world; why wouldn't they equally be willing to inflict a plausibly deniable physical attack on the US by "Mexican bandits"?

I can offer no evidence for this guerilla warfare scenario other than my willingness to not presume my enemies stupidity. Is that sufficient to justify investigating the current reality on the Mexican ground, before it "just appears out of nowhere" here on US ground?

Asking the Question Rightly

This past January 30th I asked on my Facebook page whether or not Chief Justice John Roberts was subject to impeachment himself due to his refusal to follow the impeachment trial structure developed by the US Senate for President Trump's impeachment trial. It was my observation in subsequent comments that the Senate's Art. 1, Sec. 3 sole authority over Presidential trials, specifically to include being presided over by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, appeared to place Chief Justice John Roberts into unavoidable conflict with the requirements of the "Whistleblower Protection Act", as made evident by the specific question submitted by Sen. Rand Paul in conformance with the Senate's trial requirements.

Right constitutional issue, wrong question.

This having belatedly become more clear to me, my question now becomes; what method best permits this apparent constitutional conflict, the Senate's Art 1, Sec 3 absolute and sole authority to structure Presidential impeachment trials and the existing legal constraints the Whistleblower Protection Act imposes on the execution of such a trial, being argued before the remaining members (presuming Chief Justice Roberts concurs that recusing himself from the hearing and subsequent discussions is in the best interests of justice) of the US Supreme Court to arrive at a just resolution?

It should be openly acknowledged that impeachment is at least partially comprised of a political judgement component so as to arrive at a just outcome for both the individual being judged and the country as a whole. This being true, impeaching Chief Justice Roberts for deciding as he did during President Trump's impeachment trial would be unjust for him and the country. It is my entirely layman's understanding of US law that any portion of a legislative act being in conflict with the US Constitution makes the entire act "as if it never were". How then to best get this issue before the US courts to resolve this apparently unconstitutional aspect of the Whistleblowers Protection Act?

Confronting the Inevitable

My dad has been fighting Parkinson's disease for several years now. Today, at 11:45 am PST, he tapped out of that fight. Despite the inevitability of the outcome, I and my family are discovering the crushing speed of the arrival of that long-known end.

We remain aweigh on the voyage of our own lives.

A Considered Response to the Viral Circumstance of the Day

Submitted without additional comment:

The Chyna Swing

Or Not

ENDMSG

Shout

MTF

And

MTF

Scream

MTF

Circles

MTF

Whose Lab seems a pertinent question here

The Al Fin Next Level blog is one that I have been following for 6+ years now, largely because the posts there cover a range of topics I often have at least some interest in and the posts themselves present a well-thought-out, balanced, and well sourced approach to the topic du jour. As witness, see: It Wouldn't Be the First Virus to Escape from a Laboratory 

Some Experts Believe the Virus May Have Escaped a Lab

Viruses in the same family as Wuhan Coronavirus are routinely collected and studied at minimal protection levels, making lab accidents and viral leaks more likely.

Ebright thinks that it is possible the COVID-19 pandemic started as an accidental release from a laboratory such as one of the two in Wuhan that are known to have been studying bat coronaviruses.

Except for SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, two deadly viruses that have caused outbreaks in the past, coronaviruses have been studied at laboratories that are labelled as operating at a moderate biosafety level known as BSL-2, Ebright says. And, he says, bat coronaviruses have been studied at such labs in and around Wuhan, China, where the new coronavirus first emerged. “As a result,” Ebright says, “bat coronaviruses at Wuhan [Center for Disease Control] and Wuhan Institute of Virology routinely were collected and studied at BSL-2, which provides only minimal protections against infection of lab workers.” __ TheBulletin

Which, as any blogger strives for, brings us back around to the titular point of the post; precisely whose lab had this particular strain of coronavirus get out into the world?

Which brings this post to the website Veterans Today  Billed as "Serving the Clandestine Community since 2004" may provide some useful framing for the following story:

 https://www.veteranstoday.com/2020/03/26/us-athlete-intelligence-officer-in-china-games-named-as-patient-zero-for-covid-debunking-trump-rhetoric-updating/

I can't figure out how to quote from the article directly; it's in English, but not in a coherent fashion, you'll have to go see for yourself.

At first glance, the article at Veterans Today appears to be a mash-up of someone's propaganda, or equally arguably someone's public relations efforts. Not being a professional in either, I decline to speculate. In any case, the article specifically identifies US Army Reserve Staff Sergeant Maatje Benassi as a US "intelligence officer" and "an armed diplomatic driver ... for General James Jones" who is further claimed to be assigned to US Army Intelligence. Given that Fort Meade is publicly acknowledged as the home of the US National Security Agency, a General Jones - a US Army Intelligence Officer specifically - being assigned duties proximate to the NSA doesn't seem particularly noteworthy, unless said General Jones isn't publicly identified to be in that assignment. Some cooberative linkagrey would seem the least effort required to retain even a fleeting grasp on 1st amendment claims. Also, it strikes me that an "armed diplomatic driver" would almost certainly be drawn from the ranks of active duty personnel, not a reservist (unless she were to be on active duty status at the time of posting to the position).

At the very least, this reporting verges uncomfortably close to doxxing absent the links to corroborate such claims.

Adding at least the appearance of legitimacy to all of this is this article from October 25, 2019 by the US Department of Defense: https://www.defense.gov/Explore/News/Article/Article/1998827/us-women-place-8th-despite-crash-in-50-mile-cycling-race/

A hit from behind on the final lap may have dashed the U.S. team's hopes for gold in women's cycling, but bruised ribs and a cracked helmet didn't stop Army Sgt. 1st Class Maatje Benassi from crossing the finish line.    Teammates from a trail vehicle rushed to her side to provide aid, but she refused medical care for the moment, jumping right back up on the bike. "My goal was to finish it. … I came this far, I trained this hard, I had to finish it," she said. "I was in a lot of pain, and my bike was rubbing, too. … Nothing went smooth, but I said, 'Forget it, I'm just going to finish.'" Benassi finished last among the 30 competitors from 11 nations who completed the road race.

 "But that's racing", she said. "You win some, you lose some". The Army Reserve noncommissioned officer from the 312th Observer-Controller-Trainer unit at Fort Meade, Maryland, said she won't let the setback keep her down. A few days later, she was back out training.

 It may seem trivial to non-service members, but getting the Sergeant's rank wrong is a prominent red flag regarding the factuality of everything that follows. Beyond that, is SFC Benassi's duty posting, A) correct, B) a matter of public knowledge, or did Jim W. Dean, managing editor of Veterans Today, just break operational security and subject SFC Benatti to career ending scrutiny via his deliberate doxxing of her?

It seems obvious to me that this story about the source of the COVID-19 coronavirus takes a plausible-seeming sports story from last October, associates it with nebulous claims of nefariousness (source of said claims not identified), and aligns the story presentation with known PRC/CCP propaganda that they aren't the source of this pandemic, the US Army is (there are two USAF LTC's and a US Navy Commander also mentioned in the DoD story, if infection was the objectivity why wouldn't they be included in the effort? Is veteranstoday.com officer-class snobbery showing through? Maybe PRC/CCP money is the easiest answer).

What makes this potentially something more than a moderately interesting blog post is the national security questions riddled throughout. Is this an example of PRC/CCP 4G warfare? How about "mere" collusion with a foreign power as an undeclared agent of influence? OTOH did what we know as COVID-19 get out of a lab at Fort Detrick, which is 40-odd miles northwest of Fort Meade? Not impossible, and neither is it seemingly implausible, which makes it all seem more likely as propaganda absent further facts to support such a claim.

US Army Chief of Staff General James C. McConville has the duty to his country and his fellow soldiers to investigate this matter as fully as possible, and to report his findings to the Commander-in-Chief. One direct way of starting such an inquiry is to poll the four women identified in the DoD story from last October (along with the unidentified teammates in the support vehicle) as to their physical health during the months of October and November, 2019, with medical records to support such recollections. A second line of inquiry needs to identify all of the possible means of "cross pollination" between Forts Detrick and Meade. This would be useful whether or not any member of the US team became infected with any disease. Finally, this investigation needs to happen as a matter of considerable urgency. In what I regard as on my Top 5 Worst Case Scenarios list, The USA and the PRC going Def Con 1 with each other is certainly in their somewhere. We absolutely want to know as certainly as we possibly can that we know why while we go all "duck and cover". On a different list is the names of those who get a traitors just rewards.

And you were lamenting just the other day about the lack of sports stories, weren't you? Personally, I'd rather go back to ignoring Jim Lampley.